MENTAL REPS: What you should be eating

Do you know that weird diet thing going on, where so many people simply CANNOT eat this and HAVE to eat that, in the name of health or fitness? ...I mean, how do you really explain the continued existence of detoxes and cleanses, strict ratios and meal-plans, and Whole Foods and it's spin-offs...

Well - here's an odd collision of readings for tonight. Head nutritionist of Olympic athletes Louise Burk, and Frank Zappa

I read quite a bit RE training and nutrition. Everyone needs to hear this:

"The modern trajectory for most popular diets is that they burst onto the scene and gain huge publicity via support from traditional and social media, and uptake by celebrities and other people with popular influence. The rules are tightly adhered to by the first wave of followers, and because the rules of What Can’t Be Eaten typically make it difficult to eat as much as normal, weight loss and associated benefits are a common experience. Unfortunately for the diet, its next phase involves the take up by wider set of people and spinoffs by the food industry, hospitality industry and the secondary book/cookbook industry. Suddenly, there is a proliferation of Paleo cafes, Paleo dessert books, Paleo food products etc. And the next wave of devotees isn’t so committed to marching to the drum. They are Paleo-ish—choosing the bits and pieces of the diet that appeal to them. Or just replacing chocolate bars with Paleo Bars full of contrived ingredients. Usually, by this stage, many of the benefits of the diet, especially around weight loss, start to flee because the opportunity to overeat is restored."

-Louise Burk

I don't know much about Frank Zappa. But tonight while doing the dishes I came across and listened to an interview. I'm not suggesting that we take everything he says at face value. But this did get me thinking.

"I think that’s a reasonable way to look at it because [the U.S.] doesn’t have any real sort of values, you know? And a fad provides you with a temporary occupation for your imagination. Really, [America] doesn’t have any real culture. It doesn’t have any real art. It doesn’t have any real anything. It’s just got fads and a gross national product and a lot of inflation."

This when the real solution for diet is surprisingly simple (notice that I did not say easy).

-Eat minimally processed foods

-Load up on fruits and vegetables

-Limit (but don't altogether quit) treating yourself.

-Stay generally active and include some free weight resistance exercise in order to improve and maintain your strength, balance, and general physical abilities.

But instead we have a perfect storm for confusion on how we should eat.